Talk of Dreams
by Acey Dearest
Summary: Yes, they have a place for those like this and it is not called Hell, and it is not called Heaven-- it is called the mental institution... chapter three uploaded.
1. One: Guilt

"Talk of Dreams"  
  
by Acey  
  
Disclaimer: I really don't own anyone but myself and my dogs. My value is debatable; my dogs are purebred-- mutts, but oh, well. Needless to say, this goes for all chapters...  
  
Note: Mild A/U in that there is no stopping the ultamite equalizer this go-round... or is there? We'll find it out.  
  
One--Guilt  
  
Romeo: Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace!   
  
Thou talk'st of nothing.  
  
Mercutio: True, I talk of dreams... -Act I, Scene IV, "Romeo and Juliet"  
  
Oh, the others had their hatreds in the ordeal but none like her own, what with no one she could turn to in blame, point a finger at, shout "You did it, you did it!" in some strange black magic chant until the doer begged for mercy. Nothing anyone said could change the fact that for all practical intents and purposes she had done it.   
  
They said it was the fault of someone else, but it was empty, vapid consolation, like dull textbooks assuring that no matter how you tried, pi would never come out even, as though they thought you would go home immediately afterward and attempt it. It was Pilate washing his hands after ordering Christ's execution. The Romans had done the deed but it didn't change that he had told them to do it.  
  
Logic had departed long before, dry Logic telling her that was extreme, that hadn't been anything like what had been her role in it-- the ordeal, the nice word she called it in her mind, the lying word, ever so lying-- Logic left her with the memory of the world falling about her ears as some book said.   
  
'Stop it, Keiko, stop rambling. Say it. You killed him.'  
  
Yes, she had killed him, killed him in every way but ramming the car into his body. She knew it, there was no denying it, just as there was no denying that he was dead, that there was a new headstone in the local cemetery that people had donated money to help his only relative pay for. A great granite thing, it had been, and she had barely noticed it at the funeral. Carved up in block letters with his name and the dates, and then in large, curved script below, "But he is dead, so wherefore shall I fast? I shall go unto him, but he shall not return to me."   
  
The words were archaic in nature, a Middle English mix that sounded like something more likely to be on a gravestone of a hundred years before. They did not seem to fit him. She had known him almost all her life, and he had always had such an energy about him, so very much unlike the languid, hopeless writing on the granite block that would seal him forever.  
  
'It wasn't meant for him. It was meant for everyone who went past his grave.'  
  
But he's not dead, he can't be dead-- we--  
  
'He is dead--'  
  
No. No, it's just a joke, see-- just a prank. They're all doing it to me; it's the best one they've ever pulled-- see how they've cried? They're just waiting for me to nearly drop dead on that little tombstone so he can jump out from behind me and say "Hey, Keiko--"  
  
'You know he's dead.'  
  
No...  
  
'Keiko, Keiko. You're cracking. You're cracking! Brave little Keiko admits to killing one of her friends and then mere seconds later doubts that he's dead. They have a name for this, you know-- and a place for those like this--'  
  
No...   
  
'Yes, they do, they have a place for those like this and it is not called Hell, and it is not called Heaven-- it is called the mental institution and you can see it sometimes passing long one-lane roads. They have people to cater to everything, there is a long, iron fence encircling the place, and they--'  
  
Stop it! Stop it, please-- he is dead. He is dead! So what shall I do-- what can I do-- anything, I can't save him now-- can't save him now--  
  
'You couldn't save him then. You couldn't save him then, because of your own selfish decision when the four of you were walking down the sidewalk. You signed the death warrant with that insistence, you know... If it had not been for you he would still be here, still be able to joke and fight and grin, not for you, but for her-- the one he gave up living for.  
  
'He died for her because of you, Keiko. Because of what you decided to do, because you were gone, and so they--'  
  
There was no stopping the voice that had come when Logic departed. And oh, how Keiko had begun to welcome it.  
  
'You remember that day, Keiko. You remember?'  
  
Yes. Of course she remembered.  
  
...  
  
Yusuke came over a few hours later, and she let him inside the house, her parents at a movie. No smart-aleck remarks, no flips of her skirt, no comments on anything at all. She knew why he'd come and knew there was little point to the coming.  
  
How would he open up now? There was something terrible in lightheartedness only two weeks after-- after the ordeal, something hypocritical inside that swallowed hard whenever thoughtless words were spoken or said in one's mind. None of the old ease would be between them, not today.  
  
He'd been coming over more often than he had ever done since they were little kids-- in fact, the last time he had come to her house was back then, back before everyone had labeled him the punk he so outwardly was, and her a near-goody-goody, if not, a goody-goody entirely. She knew his reasoning and the fact that it was pointless. She saw the pain, the anger on his tanned face and part of her enjoyed, welcomed it, because of where it had come from-- herself. Part of Keiko enjoyed hurting him like this while another part flinched wildly, and still another said to make him leave, make him stop this--  
  
She spoke, staring hard at a spot on his white T-shirt. Blood or ketchup? It was all the same, all the same...  
  
"Hi, Yusuke."  
  
"Keiko."  
  
Neither of them spoke for several minutes. He looked at her face, at the big brown eyes-- no more than vapid and bottomless pools. That day had stolen her soul-- not just, but had stolen Keiko, a thief in the night, leaving only a broken doll as a cheap replacement. A Silas Marner-like devil, one that took the life out of man but did not see fit to restore any decent semblance to it, not even lending one of his darkest angels to inhabit what was left, but leaving the mind to consume itself.  
  
They had tried to make her a zombie once. What she had done to herself now made that attempt pale.  
  
She turned away from his gaze, a vague hint of embarrassment on her pallid face. It was not a stunningly gorgeous face even when in the best of circumstances, when the world was sane and she was well within it. The prettiness there had always been of a homegrown kind, a girl-next-door type of look, the type in manga romances and T.V. shows for preteens. A nice face that up until now had sometimes had its moments of near-beauty.   
  
Yet now the hair was disheveled, the eyes red with dark shadows like bruises underneath. The image was faded, worn, a picture rudely torn out of a magazine and left forgotten under a stack of files.  
  
"Don't say it. I know what you're going to say. You say it every time you come."  
  
The tone was a dull monotone, words more short, to the point, than any the former Keiko had ever said. It had been weeks since he had seen that Keiko, the cheerful, overachieving Keiko, the old childhood friend. It was as if she had almost never truly existed now, and he only latched onto the memory of it like a tick to an animal, grabbing hold for all it was worth and then some.   
  
He had loved her then-- he still loved her now-- more than as the only friend he had until he was killed, more than as one of the few that had cared when he was killed. The brown-haired girl who thought enough of him to tell him off for skipping class when most were grateful he hadn't come in the first place he had thought enough of to end his chance at living for, that day so very long ago, when his house burst into flames and he saw her struggling with his body-- carrying him-- dragging him--  
  
Yes, he had loved her, and so he was there now as he had been every day since the ordeal, trying to convince her, over and over, a broken record to a deaf ear, hoping vainly for the brightest of miracles and the Keiko he knew to return-- Keiko of hopes and dreams and brightest visions, Keiko of the plain, brown eyes that nonetheless glimmered, Keiko to slap him hard for some lewd comment he made, Keiko to cheer him on and Keiko for him to cheer on, someday, for some wonderful reason. He was not a man that would be supposed by any to stay with her so when no one else would-- the valiance of the white knight had never been in high reserves for him to the cockeyed perspective of the world. Yusuke would no more be suspected of playing such a role than reading Lancelot's lines in the next school play, would not have even suspected himself of playing the role. Yet there he was.  
  
Valor was for those knights, not for delinquents like him who were underage smokers that cursed excessively, that came to school less than one day a week, that fought everything that moved, who forty years down the road would be nothing more for them than the welfare program if they were lucky. The knights weren't smart-alecked; they held their ladies in high esteem, would save them from everything-- cowardly suitors, wicked enemies, fires in castles and magic. They were supermen before there was Superman, they were symbols of what was good and fair. Valor was for the one that died, misjudged as he, too, had been.  
  
And he, Yusuke? All he could ever try to manage to save her from was every demon that attempted to lay his hand on her. As though that would really save her from anything, when this time it was the demon inside her-- the only one that wouldn't be silenced by a thousand blasts from his spirit gun. The demon of a guilty conscience, and that he could never conquer for her, no matter how many times he came or hours he spent trying.  
  
So he was there now, at her house, playing the broken record again for her with a new near-plea, wondering if the white knight ever really existed in anything but the mind of a cynical teenager, and, if he had, if he had ever lost two people to one death.  
  
... 


	2. Two: Condolence

"Talk of Dreams"  
by Acey  
  
Two--Condolence  
  
"'I don't want Church to be dead! He's my cat! He's not God's cat! Let God have his own cat! Let God have all the d--- old cats He wants, and kill them all! Church is mine!'" -Stephen King, "Pet Sematery"  
  
His human mother had gone to sleep some hours before, and he had made his feeble excuse-- an exam, more studying. She had smiled at that, deception not a trait of the young man she knew, and for not the first time he had felt ashamed.  
  
But Hiei was coming, the one part of the murderous equation that would not change its value upon any others' change, no matter-- so long as a single other variable remained.  
  
Twelve, according to the luminescent digital clock beside the kitchen counter, flashing neon green in the drape of gloom that blurred the edges of the room despite the lamp he had turned on, like time and movement will blur a photograph. Twelve ante meridians, minuit, the witching hour, the numbing hour, the black hour when all but the night shift are in bed-- and himself tonight, the books open on the counter. He glanced at the page numbers: 254, a map of the Americas in the Robinson Projection, in his history book. 188 in the next book, biology, a food chain above the text, 301 after that in a hardback book on the required reading list, held open by a metal paperweight in the shape of a panther.  
  
The hardback was easiest to get to (it was some George Orwell novel) should his mother awaken, though it wouldn't do him too much good. He mused on how he would get out of such, then decided it didn't matter anymore.  
  
Kurama picked up his pencil, let it roll around the countertop boredly, slowly, making a clicking sound as it slid into the books. If he flicked it hard enough it would rebound, he found, with all the excitement of a student with homework in every class.  
  
He suddenly stopped the pencil mid-roll with his finger, looked up, saw the familiar figure coming inside.  
  
"Hiei."  
  
The variable was missing. Kurama could tell by the look on his bronzed face that it was-- the emptiness of gaze, the slight heaviness in his gait. But then, he had known it was happening as had everyone else, even Yusuke, so oblivious to Keiko's growing madness, saw the signs.  
  
Yusuke, coming back to her house every day. The closest the former delinquent had come to seeing the insanity had been directly before the funeral, a time he would never have wished repeated. Then the denial had come between the curses.  
  
"Keiko's put all the blame on herself, you know-- she'll probably be all right soon, though, as soon as I tell her how far behind she'll be in algebra, oh, she'll panic then, won't she? Won't she, Kurama-- she'd better; I doubt she'll really get behind, but she's being so stupid these days... it wasn't her fault..."  
  
It was a gallant, blind effort, as pitiable as it was noble. Lesser things had driven minds over the edge, greater men had failed at pulling minds back to sanity. The news was all around Yusuke, he guessed, the remarks behind his back too loud for him to not hear, cruel, unwary of Yusuke's fists now held to his sides in abject defeat, though they knew not and cared not what of.  
  
"Did you hear? Urameshi's girlfriend cracked up. Guess one've those other nerds'll wind up valedictorian while her parents haul her off to the nearest loony bin-- they'll have to soon enough, yeah..."  
Why he had not stopped coming to the school was beyond him. Perfect attendance for the first time since grade school-- like as not they talked of that, too.  
  
But how they talked of the one gone in the ordeal was the worst, the part where Kurama could imagine those fists so long held down almost put up again, a flash of the old Yusuke back on the playing field. When they talked about Keiko he could dismiss it as idiocy in his denial. When they talked about the one in the grave he could not claim it empty.  
  
These thoughts ran through Kurama's mind as he looked at the fire demon next to him. He had come, after all, and a glance told him the passing had affected Hiei as well, though pitifully indirectly. The demon's eyes knew nothing of sacrilege but that of one's soul, and perhaps that was more than enough. He said nothing for a second or two, eyes focused on the redhead, boring in with a strange sort of indignity and blame. He was wearing his usual black clothes, white strip of cloth tied over his third eye, shoes with points on the end. On his deathbed, Kurama probably would be able to recall that outfit, more because of its spareness and its regularity than anything else. It was all the same, all mundanely, wrongly the same. Incorrect because it was the same when everything had changed-- as though life really should turn from the path it is taking and start anew and differently once other's lives are shattered and gone, as though habits should drop or reverse themselves without needful provocation. It didn't matter if the boss of rock and roll, the Queen of England, and the richest man in the world committed suicide on the same day, Hiei would be in the same attire, a psuedo-undertaker to pluck a flower from the horrid cascades people sent the bereaved, pin it to his pocket, yes, and--  
  
Kurama turned his mind from this disrespectful morbidity. Death was what had brought Hiei back to the human realm, and now death had become Kurama's own simile for everything.  
  
"There's been no consoling her."  
  
Kurama attempted to avoid Hiei's gaze, and failed. He had expected that, had known that would be. How could she be consoled, when the one that meant the most to her had gone to the one place she could never follow him to?  
  
"I hoped she'd--"  
  
"Did you think I didn't? But there isn't much we can do about it, is there? Not much. I never thought she thought so of him."  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
He was. Yet his own apology was hollow because of its sheer futility. He was sorry. Sorry was for pushing into people on accident, breaking vases, shouting without cause. Sorry was a solvent, a cheap glue with provisos attached to every drop-- CANNOT REPAIR in bold capitals preceding a paragraph-long list: adultery, lying, stealing, heartbreak, abuse-- and death on his pale horse. Revelations.  
  
He closed the remainder of his schoolbooks, propped against the desk should his mother come. The fire demon beside him did not even bother with a sneer at the childishness, the immaturity-- the irony of it. And Hiei kept on, uncharacteristically pressed.  
  
"None of this should have happened to her."  
  
"No."  
  
"None of it."  
  
"No."  
  
Hiei kept the same expression on his face as he spoke, like one of the robots in a manga, mechanical, though the tone had changed, become laced with grief. He was trying, Kurama could see that, all only the barest composure maintenance. Hiei had an odd idea of himself as the sneering rogue, as much a gentleman as a Rhett Butler, cool, unbothered by stupid emotions.  
  
Except when it involved her, her, the angel of his life, always sweet, always kind, always a beautiful symbol of something more, something he never felt he could be. He relegated himself to phantom, to secret guard and protector, perpetually there and watching to ensure there would be no more upset, no more miseries in her life. Yet even he could never manage to stop death.  
  
The facades shed themselves one by one, and with the shedding he felt a near-imperceptible disgust he only recognized as Hiei spoke his next words.  
  
"Why did she have to go with him that day, take him up like the fool he was? She was tortured by his race, yet she befriended him-- loved him."  
  
He did not reply immediately. Hiei's grief was for one still alive. The body in the coffin had perhaps meant something to him, before he turned and saw the sister that would never know him as brother, her tears turning into gems before they hit the floor.  
  
"Because he was good to her," he finally said, without varnish to mask or soften the words. He did not let a moment linger on before saying the rest. "Because he was good and no one else acknowledged it, or even recognized it for what it was. She did. After five years shut up like an animal she knew what kindness was."  
  
"Kindness I could never give her. And he will never give her." The dark figure's tone changed again, became colder, harder.  
  
"He gave her his life," and Kurama stood, suddenly angry. "He gave her his life, wasn't that enough for you? What more could he ever have given her? Or are you too bitter, too blind to understand that? Kuwabara was killed saving her, to give you the chance to mourn her mourning. Why won't you let this pettiness and jealousy behind, Hiei?"  
  
He stopped himself suddenly, then plunged ahead.  
  
"You're more concerned about how it's affected Yukina than Kuwabara's being gone."  
  
The fire demon's eyes were like a dark idol's, flashing with anger, hands clenched at his sides. Kurama sitting was taller than he was standing, Kurama standing made him appear the smallest of dwarfs.  
  
(no consoling her)  
  
"You have no idea."  
  
Hiei strode out of the room.  
  
... 


	3. Three: Misery

"Talk of Dreams"  
by Acey  
  
Chapter Three--Misery  
  
"Operator, just forget about this call." -Jim Croce  
  
In the half-quiet of the night, one more sound was audible amongst the insect's calls and animal howls, as full of pain as any of them. Yet even that faded into indistinction, the sobs, the light plink of the jewels Tarukane so long had made his billions from, as the workers came to eventual, restful sleep, paychecks soon to be in hand and the children free from nightmares by the shine of the nightlight dozed comfortably, not realizing how easy the comfort could be taken away, how simply it could fade as well.  
  
But fadings were for objects and objects alone, the gradual blur of color into color in ancient photographs, the fountain pen's ink fifty years later now on brittle yellowed paper that had once been new. Yes, they were for things, just things.  
  
Not a person. Not Kuwabara.  
  
Not Kuwabara, who'd had fourteen years of life, enough for absolutely nothing at all, a dim blink, flash of light across the horizon, a mayflies' lifespan. He had been born five hundred years too early, another victim of time's ironies, only to die five hundred years too soon-- too soon for her or for anyone else worth the air they breathed.  
  
More stones fell to the ground as she thought that, dropped with soft plinks on the wooden floor. She did not look at them, didn't want to look at them.  
  
She had never cried like this, not all at once like this, even when she had been imprisoned by the humans, even then, when it had been only birds that had made life almost bearable and the thought of a brother somewhere, a brother that she had somehow made into more than a brother, a life-symbol, a divine protector that would save her.  
  
But there was no brother, no godly hero with sword and shield, ready, ever ready to avenge the harm done to his sister. There were only two demons and a human she owed her life to, and was grateful for. Two demons, a human--  
  
And Kuwabara, who dared to love her and for that love was laid on a cold slab under the ground.

...  
  
When Yusuke had left the day before, Keiko had waved him goodbye half-heartedly, turned, closed the door, gone back to her room with its childishly pinkish walls she had never asked to paint over and its stuffed animals by the bed, things of purest innocence and delicate clouds and paper dreams of a little girl that was no more.  
  
And so it went for the next day, getting out of bed when she heard the shuffles of her parents, the soft, serious conversations they had taken to since the ordeal, the smell of food-- and the voice, the eternal voice.  
  
Her parents had tried to speak to her of it, but their results were as fruitless as Yusuke's own, if not, more so, because they realized how in vain it was. Parents could never succeed where friends of childhood had failed, another forgotten gem of adolescence.  
  
'Maybe they will take me to the instituition,' she thought. 'Maybe they will.'  
  
She shook this away. She was not crazy-- the voice was only trying to make it seem so, like a culprit pointing his finger at some bystander so he could make his exit. Yes. That was it. She was the sane one, never mind anything else.  
  
Keiko laid her head back on the pillow, looked up at the ceiling, the walls, everything in her room to keep her mind away from those black thoughts, the mindless thoughts that had begun to creep in though she had tried to banish them, the thoughts of the asylum with its nurses and orderlies to wash you, dress you, its psychologists to tell you what was wrong but not to help you fix it.  
  
There was a bookshelf at one end of the room, filled-- old classics all, teddy bears making a rebound placed on the sides. A bureau with a mirror, a wall with certificates taped all over it, a school picture from when she was seven. And beneath the notebooks and old annuals on the bureau, a picture of Yusuke.  
  
She thought this over and the voice that Logic had left in its place said that it was quite the tame room for a murderess such as herself.  
  
Instantly the idyllic perception blurred, dissolved, like a trick picture hanging from an elementary school wall that seemed like only a design-- until you gazed at it for what it really was and it showed its false third dimension.  
  
The walls...  
  
'Oh the walls-- oh no, no, no, the walls...'  
  
The walls were covered in blood.  
  
Dark, dripping blood that stood out harshly against the gaudy pink paint, sliding off the surface in so many droplets. It had strung itself all over the sides of the room like it had been flung around in careless maliciousness.  
  
'Oh... oh...'  
  
It would be everywhere soon, drowning the stuffed animals innocent of her crimes and the bed that had not allowed sleep since he had died. It would stain the volumes of books from the cover to the pages, no matter how thick. Then they would see-- then they would all see.  
  
"I've got to clean it up, that's all. Got to clean it up." Keiko smiled nervously, teeth almost chattering. "After all, I can't leave it like this, won't leave it like this. What would-- what would Mom and Daddy say?"  
  
She grabbed the doorknob and jerked the door open, getting out of the room, then shut it after a moment's thought. She rushed to the bathroom, comforting in its sameness, its white walls suddenly pure, pulling out a handful of old towels and a mop from the cabinet. When she had gotten these she rushed back to her room, wildly, taking no precautions as to who saw her.  
  
"Yes, it won't take too much cleaning up... I've seen worse than this..."  
  
Keiko had almost made it to her bedroom when she felt a hand touch her shoulder, strong and rough with calluses, a hardened hand that had known work in an age when work was scorned. It was a cold hand. A recognized hand.  
  
She tried to run past, but it grasped her tightly, forcing her to stop and face her antagonist.  
  
"Y-yusuke! What are you doing here!"  
  
He didn't answer immediately, only looked down at what she was carrying, the frayed towels, the mop. His brow furrowed for a moment before he spoke.  
  
"Keiko, what are you doing with this stuff?"  
  
"I-- I made a mess in my room, that's all. With-- with some oil paints, I spilled some-- don't go in, I can take care of it-- Yusuke, don't go in there-- please, Yusuke-- don't go in there!"  
  
She pulled on his sleeve, trying to will him to stop his turn of the doorknob, trying to will him to go on and say oh, all right, and leave her there, to do her job, to clean the room of its stains.  
  
But he would not. Desperately, Keiko gripped his arm, pinning her weight against his. Yusuke easily pulled back from it, and when he had he opened the door.  
  
'Now he's going to... now he will see...'  
  
He scanned the room, tanned face suddenly drained of color. She could not see his eyes but knew what they would reflect-- total, irrevocable horror.  
  
'And well he might, Keiko! Well he might! Perhaps then he'll make better decisions about the company he keeps! Demons, psychics, empaths-- none of them in their most heinous states were ever like you, Keiko, you and your neglectful killing. They saw their enemies and killed them, but not even the worst of them betrayed their allies. But you-- you do not realize enemy from friend, do you? Poor, sweet Keiko-- for that is showing. That is showing in his face at this moment, as he sees the blood on the wall. Watch his face, Keiko, watch him leave you.'  
  
The voice stopped its words as Yusuke begun his own, and she saw as he turned toward her that his eyes were not as she suspected, only hollow, defeated.  
  
"There's nothing there, Keiko."  
  
He led her back down the steps without a word, ignoring all pleas and only tugging harder at her hand as she protested. He was distant now, thoughts consuming him like wolves, denial bowed down at last to defeat.  
  
"Come on," he said, gripping her sleeve. "That's it. After all that's happened, that's it. Keiko..."  
  
She stared at the carpet.  
  
"There's still blood on those walls. I know it, I saw it! Why won't you believe me, Yusuke?! Why won't you believe me?"  
  
"Because it's not there."  
  
Keiko looked at him in shock.  
  
"Not there? Of course it's there! Didn't you see it-- you couldn't have missed it, it's all over the walls! All over the walls..."  
  
"There isn't any blood on the walls."  
  
"It's all over the walls! It's soaking them! I know what I saw! Yusuke, just stop this. It's not funny. Just-- just let me back in there so I can try to clean it up. Yusuke, please..."  
  
He said no more, and unconsciously the hand not holding Keiko's sleeve hardened itself into a fist with the fingernails cutting into the skin. He ignored the pain, what little of it there was in comparison to the crushing force of what had just happened. His last defense against the world's madness was stubbornness and stark denial, and now even that was in shreds on the floor, as real as the fervent way that she insisted on the blood that was not there.  
  
She submitted, finally, as he opened the door to the room where her parents were, called them to come-- and, as they came, began, slowly, awfully, to speak.  
  
...


End file.
